The Only Thing She Wanted
by Mistress Infinity
Summary: Truls Rohk remembers an encounter with a strange girl... Chapter 2 now up! This could potentially be continued, so let me know what you guys think!
1. I: The Beginning

Somewhere above him, the moon was shining. He could see the light through the trees, even if he couldn't see the silvery orb itself, and he took a deep breath to steady himself against the chills it sent through him. He could feel the anti-heat radiating off it, and remembered the night he had first realized how cold moonlight really was.

He had been out walking; he had nothing better to do, and how else was he really supposed to get away from the Druid, when the man was staying in his house? But apparently, he wasn't the only one walking on that cool autumn night. He had barely been out for ten minutes when he found the girl, heading back in the direction he had just come from.

Had she been like him, maybe Truls Rohk would not have noticed her. But she was nothing like him. Quite the contrary, as he darted into the shadows to avoid her, quick and silent, she stumbled over a tree root and cursed loudly as she hit the ground.

"Well," she said impatiently, "aren't you going to help me up? Because you really should. It's not very polite to watch someone fall and just leave them there."

Truls sighed, moved behind her and roughly lifted her to her feet. "There. Now, leave this place. There is nothing to be found here."

The girl laughed. "You must be Truls Rohk. My father speaks of you often."

"Your… Father?"

"Yes… My father. The Druid Walker Boh. I believe he is visiting you?"

The half-breed let out a low growl. "And what right does that give you to talk to me like that, huh? You're lucky I don't leave you to the other creatures living around here… They aren't nearly as friendly as I am…"

The girl looked into his hooded face with her doe's eyes. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you… It's been a while since I've talked to anyone… My social skills are a little out-of-practice."

"How did you know I saw you fall?"

The suddenness of the question seemed to catch the girl off-guard for a moment. "I was… Very well-trained in magic," she said after a moment. "I can sense the life-energy of beings near me." She paused. "Yours is strange, though… You don't feel entirely human…" She reached for his cloak, and he darted backwards away from her.

"Don't touch me, girl," Truls snapped. "Try anything like that again, and you'll regret it!" He disappeared into the trees before she could respond.

He didn't realize until he reached his parents' graves where he had been running to. "Damn you," he spat at the ground. "Damn you both! Why did you bring me into this world like this? Why did you create a child who had to live alone, could have no friends, could never be loved… Could never probably even feel any compassion for another person because he was too busy looking out for himself! I hate you both!" He felt a tear slide down the portion of his cheek that was currently made of flesh, and started at the sensation before reaching up to wipe the offending liquid away, ashamed of his tears even though no one could see them.

"You shouldn't yell at your parents because you're upset with me, you know," a voice from behind him said softly.

The girl. Twice now, she had found him in one night, at moments when he wished not to be found! How did she do that?

"I'm sorry I upset you," she continued. Truls noticed that she didn't attempt to come any closer to him. "It was wrong of me to behave like that, and it was probably wrong of me to follow you here. I came into the mountains because my father told me that you and I would understand each other, and that you would enjoy my companionship. Now I see that he was completely wrong. I can leave in the morning, if you would like. Perhaps that would be best for both of us." With that, she turned to leave.

"Don't go," the half-man pleaded. "Please." The girl stopped and turned back to face him. "You… Wanted to see my face? Come here. I'll show you."

The girl walked over to him silently, and Truls grabbed her wrist, lifting her hand to his hood. "Before I let you pull my hood back, you have to promise me you won't scream. I won't ask you not to be frightened… Just please, don't scream."

She nodded solemnly. "Alright. I promise."

"Are you ready?" She nodded again, and Truls let go of her wrist as she pushed the heavy, black material of his cloak away from his face.

"Now do you see why I didn't want you to touch me?" Truls still hadn't looked at the girl; his words were edged with anger as he continued. "If you pulled back my hood, this is what you would have seen! Isn't it horrible?"

The girl didn't answer him at first, then Truls felt her hand trace the partial contour of what was currently his cheekbone. Then, without a word, the girl placed her lips gently to his cheek, turned, and left the clearing.

When Truls returned home just before dawn, the Druid was awake and waiting for him.

"Where is she," the shape-shifter asked bluntly.

"Who?"

"Your daughter. I met her last night. I want to talk to her. Where is she?"

The Druid shook his head. "That's impossible. You couldn't have talked to Tyrtza…"

"Druid, I'm telling you, I talked to her, sure as I'm talking to you right now! Now, I'll ask you one more time. Where is she?"

"Dead."

The word took several moments to take full effect on Truls. "D-Dead? B-But how… How long? How long has she been…"

Walker shook his head. "A long time, Truls. She died before I entered the Druid order… She came into these mountains looking for the shape-shifters, seeking their aid in the fight against Rimmer Dall… But when she arrived, the Shadowen were waiting for her. They consumed her, turned her into one of them, and she hunted me down. I had to kill her. She wasn't herself anymore; she had become one of those monsters."

"Maybe she hadn't."

The Druid stared at him, intrigued.

"Maybe she wasn't a monster… Maybe she just looked like one. Maybe she didn't want to hurt you. Maybe… Maybe she just didn't want to be alone. Maybe she just wanted you to understand."

The next night, Truls had gone out looking for her, with no success. So he tried the next night, and the next, and the next, until he lost count of how many nights he searched for her. Every night, he returned to the clearing where he had buried his parents and stood in the spot where she had kissed his cheek, as though he expected the girl to appear before him as though nothing had happened. But every night, he was greeted only by the cold stare of the moon.

He still came to the clearing from time to time and talked softly to the night air. This clearing, he suspected, was where Tyrtza had made her final stand against the Shadowen; sometimes, on balmy summer nights, if he said the right things, he could almost hear her voice on the wind—that didn't happen anywhere else. He didn't quite understand why he kept coming back here, looking for a girl he knew to be long dead, but he suspected it had something to do with her expression when he revealed his face to her.

When he had finally found it in himself to look up at the girl, there were sympathetic tears in her eyes.

Perhaps he had been right. Perhaps understanding really was all the girl had wanted. Perhaps, even in the afterlife, she had only wanted to know that she wasn't alone.


	2. II: The End

**From the Author: This is a rough cut of chapter II (I like Roman numerals; deal with it)... I still want to do a bit more tweaking on it; add a few bits here and there, maybe take a few bits out... And definitely work on the ending. It just seems very abrupt, but I'm trying to find a way to not make the ending all cheesy... Regardless, I'm hoping to get another version of this chapter up at some point in the (hopefully) near future, so any suggestions you guys have would be super-awesome... Also, I'm debating whether or not I should add more chapters that take place in between this chapter and the first one... Long story short, I'm probably not going to write them unless you guys ask for them... So... Get asking. :P**

**

* * *

**

He could hear the raggedness of his own breathing and see the land around him as he collapsed to the ground, but what struck Truls Rohk as incredibly odd was that he couldn't feel anything. Not the grass against his face, not the usual jarring sensation of impact that came with a fall… Not even the girl tumbling from his arms.

_"I'm done,"_ he rasped to the boy. _"Finished."_ He gave instructions, rasping out orders for the boy to build a fire and take his sister with him to wait for the shape shifters to come. He wasn't entirely sure that they would, of course, but that was a risk he didn't have much choice in taking. As the boy obeyed, the halfling looked beseechingly toward the sky for a moment, then realized he wasn't even sure what he was looking for. He didn't believe in the gods of the other races—he had no reason to. Why would any god want to bring a creature like him into the world, after all?

He didn't know how long he lay there—hours, most likely, although he thought he may have lost consciousness at some point—before he heard a sudden shifting of the foliage near him, much like the sound of someone falling, and he managed to force himself to turn his head toward the rustle, just in time to see a familiar figure step into view, looking a bit flustered.

"Those tree roots cause me more trouble…"

Truls snorted at the girl's remark. "Nice to see you too," he managed.

"So _this_ is why you were summoning me," Tyrtza responded softly, her pale face an unreadable mask. She moved to kneel next to him.

"What?"

"You were summoning me," she explained. "You may not have realized it, I know… But when people think about me—which is a rare occurrence these days—I can feel a little tug. That tug is usually enough to help me back into this plane."

"I'm dying," he rasped bitterly, "stop using such complicated words."

Tyrtza's hand came to rest on his face, and he realized how cool her body felt against his own. "You're burning up, poor thing," she soothed, and asked, "Can you feel me?"

He nodded. "You're cold."

Her frown deepened. "This is going to be slow and painful," she told him, genuine sorrow in her voice. "I'm afraid there's not anything I can do to help, besides offer to stay here with you…"

"That's more than enough."

Tyrtza nodded, pulling his head into her lap. "If the boy comes over here again, he won't be able to see me," she said softly, and gently stroked his face through his hood.

"Tyrtza?"

The girl stiffened, obviously surprised that Truls had somehow learned his name. "What's wrong?"

"I'm scared," he said softly, sounding so vulnerable that it nearly broke her heart.

"It's alright," she soothed him. "I'm not going anywhere. When all this is over, I'll take you back with me. You'll be safe." She paused before continuing, "It's not really that bad, you know… Being dead, I mean. All the pain you're in when you die just stops. You drift for a little bit, unless someone's there to find you, but once you find someone else and they take you where you need to be, it's almost pleasant, really." She paused again. "Allanon came and got me… Welcomed me with open arms, actually." She shook her head. "I came with him to get my father… I know you couldn't see me, but I was there. That was the hardest thing I ever had to do, I think—see him like that, I mean. I think his death was more painful than mine, in the end," she said with a grimace at the irony.

Slowly, the halfling raised one shaking hand to his face, grunting with the effort, and Tyrtza gently took it in her own.

"It's alright," she soothed again, "I'm right here."

She wasn't sure how long she sat with him like that before the shape-shifters came.

_You are not of this world,_ they told her matter-of-factly, and Tyrtza nodded.

"I was, once," she responded, stroking Truls's face protectively. "He's dying."

_There is still a place for him in this world. The boy has made one for him._ They moved forward, closing in on the dead girl and her now-unconscious companion. _He can join us, and it will save his life._

Tyrtza's only response was to glance down at Truls Rohk's supine form and gently ease his head off her lap, getting to her feet and beginning to walk away. "Don't let him forget me," she pleaded softly, and disappeared into the night.

The shape-shifters, of course, being slightly less-than-human, were unfamiliar with this sort of behavior, and let the girl leave, barely giving her so much as a second thought. As she made her retreat back into limbo, they swooped in to do what was required to save Truls Rohk's life.

Tyrtza and her father were speaking when she felt another tug—strong enough to stop her in mid-sentence.

"Tyrtza?"

The girl frowned. "It's a summons," she said softly. "I don't know who it could possibly be from, though…"

"Go and see," Walker said, giving her a smile that suggested that, as usual, he knew something that she didn't.

She found herself in the same clearing where she had left Truls Rohk before, as a cluster of dark forms came into view around her.

_Human child,_ they began, _we know your story and the connection you share with us now. You were able to feel compassion for one of us when no one else could, to sympathize when he most needed someone to listen… For that, we are indebted to you._

One of them reached out and touched her hand briefly, and Tyrtza understood that it was meant to be a gesture of appreciation.

_He has not forgotten. You are welcome here with us any time you wish to see him—we will not let you be forgotten either._

"Thank you," she answered softly, and the one that had reached out to touch her earlier did so once again.

_Thank you for staying with me…_ He paused slightly. _I told the boy about you one night… He'll likely be pondering the story more when things settle down a bit, if you would like to make a personal appearance._

Tyrtza nodded. "I'll be needed at Paranor, as well, once they get home… I'll try to stop by as often as I can, though."

_I can help with that… You can't ignore a summons, can you?_

She chuckled. "Sort of… I mean, I can, but after a while, everyone else can feel them and starts badgering me to answer… I ignored my father all the time, at first."

_Good. That means you'll have to come visit._ He paused. _We have to go now… Something came into the mountains that shouldn't be here. Goodbye, Tyrtza._

The shape-shifters disappeared into the night once more, and after taking just a moment to reflect on what had just happened, Tyrtza Boh disappeared as well.


End file.
